How Your Fitness Is Affected By Working In An Office

OK so you work a normal Monday to Friday 9 till 5 job. It gets to 5 o'clock and your on your way home and it comes to the decision of shall I go to the gym or not. The same happens when you get up in a morning you haven't had time to face the decision of whether to get your gym gear ready and take it to work.

Rush Training advice, premeditate your gym routine.... Forward planning and convincing yourself prior to the actual event allows automatic thinking. So whether your going to the once, twice, three or more times it doesn't matter, you already know when and what time your going to the have your workout.

The average calories burnt doing light work of an office worker based on 170lb male is about 37 calories and hour, compare that with a builder or laborer that burns in excess of over 350 calories an hour.

So what exercises can be done whilst at a desk:

1. Abdominal Crunches - Contract your abdominal (stomach), hold the contraction for a few seconds, then release. Repeat this for 30 second sets all day whilst you are working at your desk.
2. Glute Exercises - These are easiest to do at your desk. Do contractions for 30 seconds then on the final contraction hold for 10 seconds. Do a few sets of these throughout the day, no-one will notice and you'll have that tight ass in no time.
3. Toe Taps - Tapping your toes against the floor continuously help increase your metabolism throughout the day and thus burning more calories. Make sure no-one can see and your doing it preferably on a carpet as the noise may become annoying for your colleagues. 

Doing all these exercises will help burn more calories whilst at work. Other recommendations include drinking plenty of water and moving around at least once an hour to keep the blood running around your body.

Nutritionally Limit Your Snacking:

• Try to prevent snacking at your desk, drink plenty of water to ease the need to eat.
• If you need to snack try and spread out eating into intervals.
• Have a wholesome breakfast i.e. porridge oats with a low glycemic index with slow release energy to keep you going throughout the day.
• Eat fruit and nuts at intervals throughout the day, rather than cakes and biscuits. An example being at around 1030 and then again in the afternoon at around 330.
• If you need a hot drink look at drinking green tea, this will keep you going an also boost your metabolism at the same time, without piling on the calories and is also very good for you.

Stress In The Office

Stress in the office or general work related can also effect your fitness and health. There are many ways in wish your workplace can cause stress i.e. work traffic, pressure from authority or peers. Stress can affect you mentally, physically and emotionally which could lead to increase risk in heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

How can you combat and limit these stress receptors:

• Constantly assessing and re-evaluating your goals and prioritize them in order of importance.
• Always have a period for reflection and relaxation this means breaks or time outs and try to make sure you take a lunch break.
• Get adequate sleep and rest to maintain your energy levels
• A healthy balanced diet is key. A poor bad diet can make you ill or demotivate you. Limit your caffeine and alcohol intake as much as possible and drink plenty of water.
• Develop alternative activities such as a relaxing hobby to take your mind off problems. doing activities such as meditation or yoga classes, gyms, aerobics or sports clubs which will switch your focus and is a stress buster.

In the world of computers and the office exercise and nutrition are key remember balance between work and play, pre-planning of workouts or fitness stress busting activities or hiring a personal trainer to keep you motivated always helps. Gym buddies are also a great motivator as workouts become more enjoyable, social and challenge. For further hints, workouts and tips visit Rush Training Fitness website. Remember stay motivated.

10 Steps To Start Running

Everyone can run, but where to start? Here are a few tips from rushtraining to help you take that first stride to success.

1. Choose Your Terrain

   
   Think about whether you want to run indoor on a treadmill and pound the belt with a controlled speed level and fellow ‘tread-millers’ doing the same. This has the added bonus of knowing how far you have gone and setting goals in a consistent environment. Great for beginners!
   Outdoor running can be tougher as you are propelling yourself across the ground rather than gaining some help from the treadmill but the ‘real’ environment prepares you better for events and races further down the line.
   

2. Run With Someone

   
   Either a running club at your gym, a trainer or someone who is interested in running too. This will add a great social element to you runs and you can motivate each other to help you keep up the good work. Running with someone who is slightly quicker or fitter than you will also give you a good target of fitness level to aim for.
   

3. Sort Your Feet Out

   
   Get some advice from a specialist sports shoe or running shop to help look after you feet. A good pair of trainers is an essential tool to start running.
   Running is an exercise that can transfer a lot of stress through your leg joints and the correct pair of trainers will help with the impact management of this. It also may highlight a where you need to add conditioning exercises into a programme to help strengthen your muscles. This will support your tendons and joints and boost your running ability!
   

4. Look the Part

   
   Lycra isn’t for all of us I know but do invest some comfortable running clothes. This has a two fold effect. Physiologically you will give your limbs room to move and be able to improve you stride efficiency and psychologically it is important to feel like a runner. By putting on your running kit you can get into the right mindset before you run, be it a training run or race.
   

5. Plan, Plan, Plan

   
   Plan when you are going to do your runs on a weekly basis and commit to those times. Even if it is just a 15 minute session. It is important you build the habit in the first few weeks of training. By committing to a time slot(s) every week you are much more likely to sustain your improvements and make sure you fit in enough time to recover and eat the right nutrition to sustain your plan.
   

6. Seek Advice From A Trainer

   
   If you find the first few weeks hard and do not know when/how to progress your training or even where to start in some cases? Get in touch with a trainer who will be able to keep you on track and guide you through you running goals. It may just be for a motivational chat or planning session, but it will definitely help you get started and give personal specific answers to any questions you may have.
   

7. Start Slow

   
   Don’t think you need to run as fast as possible on you first few attempts. The most successful runners all started from the same stand point. ‘You’re in it for the long run’ definitely applies here. Ligaments and tendons take longer to adapt to activities such as running because the have a limited blood supply compare to that of muscles. This means that they need more recovery time to adapt to training. Want to stay injury free? Keep your first month of running at a slow consistent pace and you will be glad you did later on!
   

8. Test Yourself

   
   By using distance or time as an indicator set yourself an achievable goal. Keep re-testing every 6-8 weeks or so to see how you are getting on. If you want to run faster it is a good idea to do a ‘Race-Pace Test’ every few weeks to see if you are improving, getting worse or just standing still!
   

9. Aim For An Event Or Goal

   
   Most people who run have an event or goal in mind. Make sure you leave enough time to prepare for your 5km, 10km or marathon as this will have a big impact on you continuing to run post the event.
   Your goal may change in the course of the plan, but that’s ok. It is when you stop setting goals all together that you should be worried.

10. Run To Music

    
    Listening to some favourite music will keep you going throughout your run and it is a great tool to mark your runs by. Using different playlists for different runs is a great motivational tool e.g. Dance music for fast runs and classical music for recovery runs.
    It can be a great motivator by saying to yourself ‘I’ll just run to the end of this song and then I’m done’. Use the length of a song to help measure your distance or speed training when you step it up after the first couple of months!

Happy Running